More Über than Alles,
More Sauer than Kraut,
More Wiener than Schnitzel,
More Ramm than Stein,
Hanzel und Gretyl,
More German than German.
Hanzel und Gretyl are a two-person Industrial Metal band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 1993 and consisting of Kaizer von Loopy and Vas Kallas. They're known for their aggressively (and occasionally controversial) German aesthetic, blatantly unpretentious style, and roaring guitar riffs which get heavier with every album.
Discography
- Kindermusik (1994)
- Ausgeflippt (1995)
- Transmissions From Uranus (1997)
- Oz Factor (1999,
unreleased due to the collapse of Energy Records) - Uber Alles (2003)
- Scheissmessiah (2004)
- Oktotenfest 2006 (2006)
- 2012: Zwanzig Zwolf (2008)
- Born to be Heiled (2012)
- Hanzel und Gretyl fur immer (2013)
- Black Forest Metal (2014)
- Reichstar (2017)
- Satanik Germanik (2018)
- Hexennacht (2019)
Hanzel und Gretyl provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: They're pretty much always parodying whatever genre they're playing in. For laughs, check out the reviews of Black Forest Metal from truecultoid edgelords who don't appreciate being made fun of on RYM (and elsewhere).
- All Germans Are Nazis: The main joke behind the band is that they're Germany if your entire knowledge of the country came from American pop culture, ie.
war, beer, and The Brothers Grimm. - Alien Abduction: Ausgeflippt and Transmissions From Uranus are about "space alien experimental babies" causing chaos.
- Artistic License – Geography: Contrary to what "I'm Movin' to Deutschland" will have you believe, there is in fact no train line running from New York to Berlin.
- Banned in China: German censors did not appreciate Uber Alles and banned it.
- Bilingual Bonus: They have songs in English, German, Latin, Greek, and Ancient Sumerian. Vas Kallas is a language major, if you couldn't tell.
- Boldly Coming: "Mutant Starseed Creation."
- Careful with That Axe: Vas Kallas can scream very, very loud. Some songs don't have any real lyrics and are just her screaming as loud as possible.
- Cue the Sun: "Dimentia Solaris.""The sun is shining brightly."
- Downer Ending: Uber Alles ends with a jarringly low-key, depressing song.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Their first two albums are a sci-fi themed cross between punk and techno, as opposed to the Industrial Metal they're known for, and the German elements weren't quite as overwhelming as they became later on.
- Genre Mashup Hanzel und Gretyl fur immer is a remix album with some utterly oddball mixes, ranging from J-pop to bluegrass. It has to be heard to be believed.
- Gratuitous German: An intentional example - they can speak fluent German, but it's usually either completely mangled or arbitrarily combined with English.
- Hidden Track: Ausgeflippt and Transmissions From Uranus end with surreptitiously recorded audio of the duo yelling at each other over the quality of the mix. They're pretty well hidden, as you have to go through several minutes of noise and then several more minutes of silence before you'll hear them, and you can really hear Loopy's Brooklyn Rage coming through."You know what I think of the record? Fuck you!"
- Ironic Nursery Tune: "Intermission" is a bizarre lullaby sung by some of the Rammstein folks.
- Music to Invade Poland to: Invoked for stylistic purposes on a number of their albums. Typically the song will be an aggressive militaristic-sounding track with either nonsensical puns and wordplay ("Third Reich From the Sun," "Verbotenland") or more mundane lyrics about drinking and partying. "The Pickelhaube Song"
is a good example, with absurd lyrics about having intercourse with a pickelhaube. - New Sound Album: Uber Alles is a rather dramatic genre shift from sample-driven electro-punk to screaming, wall-of-guitars industrial metal; Word of God says that Oz Factor would have provided a more natural transition between the two sounds but it is currently a Missing Episode. A decade later and Black Forest Metal would transition them into a black metal band.
- Older Than They Think: Some people tend to think of them as "American Rammstein," but they're actually slightly older and were playing up German elements for comedy earlier.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Very common on Hexxenacht. The title song itself is a crowning example of this trope.
- Religion Rant Song: Most of Scheissmessiah.
- Sampling: They are an industrial metal group, after all. Kraftwerk and Dance Dance Revolution are particularly common. Their early albums had songs that were nothing but samples from sci-fi movies.
- Rock Me, Asmodeus!: Hu G's transition to a black metal band coincided with a strong focus on occultist and satanic elements in their lyrics. It's ultimately a subversion though as they are more metal than the Devil.
- Sound Off: "Das Boot" is written like a Call-and-Response Song military march, complete with a distorted voice counting the cadence in the background.
- Vocal Tag Team: Starting with Uber Alles, von Loopy sings a song or two on every album.
- Word Salad Lyrics: Practically every song off Transmissions From Uranus and Uber Alles.
